Spoelstra Overcomes It All To Become A Champ Again

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – He’s never won NBA Coach of the Year, but Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra has had the last laugh as the leader of the back-to-back champions.

Spoelstra may have been blessed with the Big Three, including the greatest player in the game, LeBron James. However, the stress of dealing with the noise and everything else going with the Heat in the last three years has been overcome by Spoelstra’s leadership.

Still, Erik knows just how valuable arguably the greatest player in NBA history is to the organization.

“He is the best conditioned athlete in this game. He takes pride and puts in so much time into it,” Spoelstra said of LeBron.”

Spoelstra deployed LeBron in a multitude of ways trying to shut down a solid San Antonio Spurs offense that had run through the Western Conference.

“He was guarding Parker, Ginobili, whoever was the most dangerous threat and then had to create so much offensively as well. He probably lost 12-15 pounds in this playoff run expending so much energy.”

For Spoelstra, one of the biggest decisions he had to make was to alter the lineup when Udonis Haslem struggled and the Heat needed a spark.